What the Crickets Can Tell You When You Read Between the Lines
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: Trunks can move through time like sand through a sieve, but even he has to play by its rules sometimes. He stumbles across Son Gohan one night in the past he only ever visited, never claimed, and they talk about both everything and nothing at all.


**Author's Note: this was another Tumblr challenge, but I think it came out okay.**

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"So, Gohan." Trunks said, watching as the stars flew by overhead, "How, uh, how was school?"

Gohan turned his head to the side against the grass so he could study the side of Trunks' face- but only for a second. He did not want to be caught staring. "Oh, um. Fine. It was... A regular school day, I suppose. You know how that goes."

"I've never been to school," Trunks admitted.

Gohan felt like an idiot. "Oh. Right. Right." He swallowed. "I've, um, only been there for about a month, and I skipped a week to train for that tournament, so I don't... I don't actually know for sure what's normal or not."

"Oh," said Trunks.

"Yeah," Gohan added softly.

They kept quiet awhile, both unsure what to say to the other.

"Are there... Other people your age? At school?"

"Sure," Gohan said. "There's, um, lots." He pulled his arms across the soft carpet of grass on the hillside and closer to his body.

"How, um," he cleared his throat. "How old are you now, Gohan?"

"I'm eighteen, but my birth certificate will tell you differently," he admitted.

"Oh. That's why. I guess..."

"You... guess?" Gohan asked.

"Uh," Trunks' eyes widened and he tinged a warmer color than that of his tanned skin. "It's just that my Gohan always looked so much older to me than you ever have, even now. That's why. But, well, I guess he _was_ older." He chuckled. "And I suppose I've always been older than you, too."

(Gohan was supposed to be a warrior who was as quick to defend his friends as he was with a loud, friendly laugh. He was supposed to be the kind of hero people whispered about over the radio. This one was shy, studious, and meek. A nobody.)

"Makes a difference, I guess," Gohan agreed.

Silence fell over both of them. A few fireflies pulsed around them like the signal lights on the bottom Trunks' time machine.

(Trunks was supposed to be a child of eight, best friends with Son Goku's legacy made flesh and blood. But this man was neither of those things.)

"Are there any kids your age, now?" Gohan broke the silence. "In the future, I mean."

"Not... not really," Trunks said.

(Their faces were both familiar and unfamiliar to one another, like two reflections from the ghosts of yesterday that had somehow come through the mirror and into reality.)

Trunks fought to continue the conversation. "I mean, I've met a few, but we don't really..." he sighed. "Have you made any friends, Gohan?"

"Huh? Oh! Um, yeah. There's... this one girl, named Videl. She's actually the daughter of that guy with the afro. At... at the, um, Games."

"Games?"

"The... The Cell Games, yeah."

Trunks' eyes grew wide like the moon, and he cast his gaze over at Gohan. "You mean the wrestler?"

Gohan nodded as Trunks finally broke out of his disbelieving trance and into a laugh. They did not look away from one another.

(They were trapped by the eyes of the person they had met before one of them had even been born, grew up with twice, and was now meeting again like it was the first time. They spoke like they were strangers when they should be anything but.

Should have, would have, could have. Reminiscing begets regrets. They both knew that all too well.)

"Yeah, I laughed, too, when I learned who she was," Gohan quietly told him.

"Wow," Trunks finished, still giggling despite himself. When he calmed down, he put his arms behind his head and sighed. "Do you have any other friends, or just her?"

"Oh. Um. Well, there are these two other kids that are nice to me, too. But they don't really, um."

Trunks watched Gohan more closely.

"We don't have much in common," he admitted. "None of them do, really. Not even Videl, actually." He plucked and played with a blade of grass. "But they're nice. They're all nice." He chuckled. "I'm happy I got to meet them."

"Yeah?"

"Mm," Gohan said.

Trunks turned to look back at the moon. "Then I'm glad you-" Gohan was suddenly on top of his chest and peering down into his face, "-got to meet them, too."

(They know things about one another, too. They don't know how. But they still do.)

"How long until you planned on leaving again, Trunks?" Gohan asked.

"I... I wasn't," he trailed off. "I'm a time traveller. I can be gone for a year, but then come right back and nobody would ever know but me. So, does it, um, really matter?"

Gohan's face was impassive. "This is the only timeline you can move through time in, isn't it? Just this one. You can only go right to the moment you left in your own."

Trunks held his tongue, but his face gave him away.

(They are both terrible liars, for example.)

"The dead stay gone," Gohan said. "And if they don't, they find a way to break your heart again."

"Your father came back," Trunks argued, quiet, frantic, desperate.

"They aren't yours to keep," Gohan said. "Death comes whenever it's suited to. And that's it."

"But-!"

"If you're alive, still, though, it's your job to keep living and be happy. Trust me."

"So I should just go back, and live with that?!" Trunks shook his head and fought to get up. But Gohan was both gentle and firm in keeping him down.

(It was always like that, between the two of them.)

"I never said you had to go back," Gohan told him.

Their breath mixed first, and then their lips, and then their hands.

Trunks stayed down, bewildered and thoroughly put in his place.

Gohan folded his hands on top of Trunks' chest and then put his head atop both. "And I would like it, if you stayed," he said, and smiled.


End file.
